It's a tough topic but the message keeps coming through about how these bullies have a personality disorder - and with all the reading comes a real enlightenment about this thing called a narcissistic psychopath. I have loved finding out more and doing research, because I'm a geek like that. But I also am very very pleased that it is helping people. I have lost count of the number of people who have private messaged me and just said thank you for sharing information like this as it has made them feel not so alone. Obviously there is a very big community online for a very wide range of videos you can also watch on youtube. You need never feel alone again.

But this topic of the mind is so important - this week Anthony Robbins was back in London doing his unleash the power within seminars, something I went to 17 years ago and it helped to radically change my viewpoint. Everything is based around what you think about it, you only get treated how you love yourself to be treated, you are only affected by things that you allow to affect you. And generally speaking if you have a positive outlook, people get positive results, and I don't mean in a namby-pamby way, I mean in a very down-to-earth practical make it happen type way. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and the things that happened to me in the last six months have led to a much better place. Read more about it below.

This week one of my brothers who is training to be a counsellor, sent me another link - it's possibly the best explanation of this personality disorder I have read so far. So do read it if you're not sure whether you're in a relationship with one or not - you just know you feel put down all the time and like you're coming second to someone else's needs - even if they love-bombed you at the start and made you think that was their true self.

On another note, I saw 'Their Finest' this week and it made me go into reflective mood. If you go watch this amazing film set in WW2 about the Ministry of Defence using home made films to helpl the war effort, starring Gemma Arterton (stellar) and Bill Nighy (outstanding) and the breathtaking Sam Claflin (phwoar) (also in Me After You). Reflective because along with all these blogs I'm writing about relationships, it made me reconsider my own history, but this time with a more pragmatic approach.

I have to say I too have been a glutton for punishment, staying with a bully or a narcissist, even though they were lesser versions, they were still bullies and narcissists. See below. Almost always, looking back to that first unusual period of our relationship where he was really nice to me, thinking we could go back to then as that's who he really was. Nah. They call it 'love bombing...'

LOVEBOMBING - BEWARE THAT 'HE/SHE'S THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME' FEELING if it then changes permanently to something awful...

So they give off a different representation of themselves at the start. And that's why, if I ever look back and get all nostalgic and wish 'things were how they used to be' and 'we can get back what we had at the beginning' it helps to remember that the beginning was a false start, and that the person you dealt with at the end was actually the real him.

Sometimes that tactic works and they woo you and get their feet under the table and only then, when they've 'got you' does their true self starts to emerge - one who resents their partner's independent thinking and social life and gets angry any time they don't agree. I have had several experiences of this variation on a theme, one of them with ar guy who had a great job (on paper at least) but having been a spoilt only child with a big chip on his shoulder, he gradually revealed himself as a grade A Feck-wit.... and a long enduring relationship with a man who put himself first and believed his own rhetoric but kept me tied up in his fantasies for years... and another who was a bit of a waster but I believed the best in him... see my story below.

Meanwhile if you are reading this and you haven't yet read the originals - go here to -

Keep in touch with me, email me your story - especially if you too had your 'aha' moment, and broke free - it really can be done in most circumstances, especially with a pure narcissist. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Any story is a valuable story, even if you want to tell just me, just say, as getting it out can be very therapeutic, just as the below was for me.

best wishes

debs

x

MY STORY -

Wanting to believe the dream and seeing the best in others.

It's again a fact of life that my family and loved ones know something ironic about me - they tell me I always see the best in people. And often when they say it, they are not being complimentary. They are explaining away the reason why, yet again, I've given someone the benefit of the doubt, and made excuses for their ongoing 'wrong' behaviour, ignoring all the outside signs that are so clear to others. So no wonder I'm sometimes left with yet another 'what was I thinking' phase tucked firmly into my past. Men eh, huh.

Looking back it really does seem clear, now, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially knowing what I now know about all this stuff!

'Nat'

One was a bit broken, and declared he could not leave his job which he hated, because he was just stuck. I obviously - at the time - thought that things might change and I could help change them. Yes I was a fixer. But no more. Looking back, it's easy to see how this person was not presenting a true image of himself to me, especially at the start. Being more attentive, being more focussed on me rather than themselves. Being more able to accept certain things about my life and activities that later they began to put down or criticize. And being very careful to keep from me habits they knew would not sit well with a long term relationship with me. He wasn't necessarily a NP (narcissistic psychopath) but he was definitely not appropriate for me as a partner. I'm being kind, here.

'Roy'

Roy WAS one, however. With a vengeance. He was confident, gave off a complete whitewash of devotion at the start and gradually began to object to my friends and even my family. He insidiously sapped away my confidence until a year later, coupled with an awful time elsewhere in my life, he was part of the reason why I went on anti-depressants for the only time in my life. He did nasty things and was generally vile to me, yet bit by bit I accepted each stage - for a multitude of reasons but mainly because once we got back to the nice bit, he promised it would all be ok thereafter. Which of course it never was. Circumstances kept me going back to him, more of what happened is here on a previous blog and also in my 2017 till the Fat Lady Slims book, which relates how it affected my weight.

I should have known better really when one night quite early on, he kicked me viciously when i slid into bed with him after arriving late and he was already asleep, and i put my cold feet on his leg. Nasty - should have got out right then and there shouldn't I? Or when I got treated like second class when he took down my new home card when his ex wife arrived to see his new place, but kept hers up when I arrived. Or worst of all, when we went for a meal at a local restaurant, and he raised his voice during a row and silenced the restaurant - over something stoopid I can't even recall. I walked all the way home crying, but still did not kick him out when he got back afterwards, saying sorry. Jesus. If that was my child I was listening to, I would go kill the bastard, wouldn't you? Anyone with a story along these lines, DO NOT PUT UP WITH IT especially if it's early on, or not too late to escape - like, you don't own property, you aren't married, you don't have kids together or work together and if you split up you could easily not haave to see them again around the town. GET OUT and practice ZERO contact (see last week's blog).

Ant

Even my first husband was a bit of a Narc. He was totally a love bomber at the start, but also continued it throughout especially following transgressions (which in the days before mobiles was hard to prove otherwise, but I later found out he WAS actually playing away - with countless women during our 14 years together it eventually turned out.) He also found it hard to remain proud of me when my career really took off and got resentful , he admitted, when he had to play second fiddle, assuming I was always off having affairs. Where really HE was the one being a serial philanderer, but in judging me by his own standards, he turned the spotlight on me. He also began putting our children down, in an insidious way, small but constant sniping and undermining their image of themselves - he had probably had the same thing from his own dad , to be fair, but still no excuse. When we split up, and I could do all the care-giving alone for our two lovely kids, they instead got told they did indeed know what was best for themselves, that they could achieve anything they wanted to if they wanted it enough, and never put them down in that nasty sly way, just to make himself feel better about his own life. I'll never forget when he didn't turn up for my son's rugby match one Sunday, having said he would, which made my son think he finally mattered to his dad, leaving my poor son in tears cos his dad didn't show. That was my son's 'aha' moment I think, and he's been forever at peace with the sometime uncle he calls dad. He's an arsehole, said a friend of mine way back then - a loveable arsehole, but an arsehole nonetheless, she said. And I think that sums most of them up, don't you? Now he's there for them occasionally on the phone, never supported them financially, that's been only down to me - no holidays or clothes or pressies to speak of, and on the end of a phone from time to time, but not really ever in a strongly supportive way, you know? But they are the strong, secure people they are in spite of him, not because of him, and that's fine. Everything happens for a reason, so my being alone in my fifties instead of nursing a thirty year strong relationship with what I believed for so long was a good man, is the price I'm willing to pay for having freed my two kids of the chains that bound them to playing second fiddle to a part time narcissist. Maybe I'll choose better next time...

Douglas

Another recent experience at least proved to myself that I am now capable of not giving in over and over again. That old adage of 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me' was very true when I became involved in the tangled web spun by Douglas - who had very blue eyes and was a hunky but small guy, a couple of years ago now. Douglas had me at hello, such a connection, both physical and almost tangible, which was confirmed by a text he sent me admitting he was attracted to me, after which we began a tentative journey towards a relationship, despite the fact that he was trying to get out of his current one. Thing was, his partner was clearly a narcissistic psychopath. Anyone who knew her well, and there were many people who later came out of the woodwork, had many tales to tell. So I believed his spin on his life. She had treated her animals better than him, gave him no attention, little sex, was jealous of everything he did and everyone he mixed with and he needed to get out. Then he tried to twice, dumping her, only to be reeled back in afterwards. The second time, the 'fool me twice' kicked in, and I told him that, even though NOTHING physical had significantly happened between us (nor would it, it turned out) I could not play along with his journey, and there could be no 'us' all the while he was not single, not even talking about there being an us.

I was glad to have made that decision.

He tried to dump her again, then a third time after which she sought treatment which apparently made his job far more difficult and made her tolerable. My experiences above had made me alerted to putting myself into a situation whereby I was being treated second best, and told him that - reminding him every so often when it started to feel like we were getting closer again, as we continued to work together and he continued to regale me with a commentary on his situation. It was hard, since I truly believed in this guy and the way he portrayed his situation - turns out it was archetypal narcissist / co-dependant behaviour - as over and over again he told me how bad it was, including in texts (which I kept to prove to myself how it had turned bad, should my poor lovelorn mind put on its rose tinted spectacles of memory and get all nostalgic for 'how it used to be' or for 'what could have been.')

Still looking back, I fear his true situation is an awful one and his life will continue to be bad once things revert to their original patterns.

But eventually, when 'we' crashed and burned, he sent me a long text claiming that the reality was far removed from him being that person he'd portrayed to me - which was difficult to believe given the certainty I'd experienced with my own eyes from someone sitting in front of me, crushed, sad and obviously lonely. He'd said he was a shadow of his former confident self, had 'lost his sense of self' etc - which was why it all resonated when I started reading up on Narcissistic patterns. He even said he'd cried one time when thinking about having a new life and going to a family wedding with me later in the year... a grown man, crying. So sad. I felt for him as he'd described to me having no reciprocated sex life to speak of, of being questioned about everything and everyone he was with every day. And of being ostracised from his friends and potential other jobs, due to the aggro it created at home. By now I'd told him we could not 'be'. But still he kept coming back to work with me, and still he and I felt that connection. So I knew it had to be forced to end, so I guess having written all about my thoughts in a blog, which he did not like, the outcome in the long term turned out to be a satisfactory one. Cut a long story short, he ended up showing me his true colours, his other side, none of which I'd seen, when he appeared one day in bully mode and I saw the light. If he was partly a NP himself, or on substances which helped to explain it all, who knows - I wouldn't have said so, but I was past caring by then. However upset I got, I still decided it was best if we did not work together again, so that was it. Except it wasn't, since no NP likes to be wrong-footed. But nevertheless I rode it through and got out relatively unscathed.

People know the truth - ones who matter do anyway - and I can hold my own head up high as my own behaviour was something to be proud of, given what he'd said and done to me, and how he'd behaved to her, the person who by the end he was holding up as the love of his life. He then sent that long text, claiming all he'd said about her was his own fault.

OR... could it possibly have been that final text was written BY her, or for her - which amounts to the same thing - from one who was trapped by a NP, hook line and sinker. I care not either way. By the end, it was easy to look back and despite being worried for him, and caring about his well being and having tried my best to listen and be a good friend, he turned on me just as soon as he realised I did not give a monkeys any more and was not under his own spell any more either.

After all, I see the best in people don't I?

Should I stop?

Should I stop? Should I assume that the next man is also someone to be wary of? Or should I go on in my eternal belief that people are good and true and to be given the benefit of the doubt until proved otherwise? That one day there WILL be a man who will be my equal, genuinely, not one pretending to be. That one day there will be a partner who I can truly rely on? A psychic said (and therefore it MUST be true (!)) that there will be a new man - one with whom things will be 'easy' and not full of baggage and conflict and difficulty. One who will be strong and supportive and be able to be the win d beneath MY wings rather than me eternally being his. Or trying to. Well whatever, one thing's for sure. I will be wary of 'love-bombing' and things being too good to be true. In the end, I'm not. What I offer is not - at least, for the right person. But sadly I won't trust quite to easily next time.